


beneath running skies/from buried places

by wildcard_47



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 16:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Lane's waiting in the parlor to speak with you. Alone.</i> Three moments in Rebecca Pryce's life. Pre-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beneath running skies/from buried places

_Lane's waiting in the parlor to speak with you. Alone._

Her mother's voice is calm, but the manner in which she opens the wardrobe betrays her nervousness. She scans the dresses inside with a critical eye, throwing a similar look over her shoulder to her daughter. Rebecca suppresses a huff at the scrutiny, pushing her half-finished letter aside. It's barely ten o'clock. She's aware what this means. She isn't a fool.

_You must change,_ Mother says, hands curling around the clothes hangers. _Quickly!_

Rebecca sheds her day dress and slides into the chair in front of her vanity, studying her reflection in the mounted mirror. Her hands are steady as she twists and pins a few stray locks into place. Three freckles are visible below her right eye, and she swipes at them with a makeup sponge until the skin there is even and clear.

She directs a pointed look toward the door, wanting time to herself.

“I'll just be a moment, if you don't mind.”

Her mother pretends not to have heard, hands threading between fabrics, pulling out several dresses for consideration. _Pink satin?_

Rebecca's fingertips trail over the dress in question, wistful. Patrick Morrow had kissed her in the back garden the last time she'd worn this. There was a little party for her twenty first birthday, just a few neighbors over. He'd been on leave. Had written her a note on the back of a postcard.

(Six months later, he was killed in the Rhineland. She'd slept with his last letter under her pillow for weeks, till the paper was water-stained and fragile like tissue, till the handwriting of her favorite line had faded: _dear Winter, thoughts of you still keep me warm at night._ )

“No,” she says, standing. “The organza will do.”

A knot begins to form in her stomach, but she ignores it, accepting the blue dress her mother presses into her hands and donning it as quickly as she can. She smooths down a wrinkle in the bodice as the older woman zips her up.

Mother's hands come to rest on her shoulders. _My grown girl_ , she says, and her mouth trembles a little. She covers it with a hand, moving to open the door. _I'll let him know you're coming._

Rebecca stays put for another moment, staring at her reflection.

“Mrs. Rebecca Pryce,” she whispers, as if it's an introduction. The woman staring back at her looks smart and polished. A businessman's wife.

Name still feels funny in her mouth – terribly awkward. Not as elegant on the tongue as Miss Winters. Rebecca dawdles for a moment longer, giving the future Mrs. Pryce a small bob and a wave. How do you do. It's a little silly.

(She wonders how Lane will ask her. He'll be terribly nervous.)

The thought's almost endearing. Rebecca is nervous, too, but she's better at hiding these things.

_Rebecca Jane!_ her mother hisses from the landing. _Go to him!_

She takes a deep breath.

**

Rebecca couldn't eat all day – it's nerves, Mother insists.

Her head aches from having her hair pinned up, the dress is an exhausting mass of lace, and Granny's veil is much heavier than she had imagined.

Lane weeps as she walks down the aisle, and tears sting her eyes when they exchange vows, though her voice is steady. _For richer or poorer, to honor and obey, till death do us part._

“My darling girl,” he whispers later, when they're alone in a strange bed. “I'll take care of you.”

She isn't afraid. Not enough to matter, anyway.

_**_

There's blood in the bedclothes when she wakes. Her legs and stomach are sticky with it, and she shakes so violently at the sight she can hardly breathe, can hardly walk to the car even with Lane's help. His face is white with fear as he drives, jaw clenched very tightly.

They don't let him accompany her to delivery. They never do.

Six months is too many to cut it out, so she's put into a room at the end of the hall, screaming and sobbing, her fingers clawing at the bed rails as the pain overtakes her

_please_ _get it out, get it out, getitout damn it_

until a nurse restrains her hands, until all she can do is push and strain and weep.

The doctor doesn't have an explanation. _Five losses in eight years is troubling_ , he says, though he says it to Lane and not to her. She overhears them talking by the door.

_I would not be optimistic_. He writes her a prescription for pills.

Lane's grief comes out in stifled whispers, as she feigns sleep in that terrible room: _it's my fault, Becca, forgive me, forgive me._ But she has no more tears to shed, no mercy to dispense.

Something died inside her. Something is broken.

Months pass. Lane buries himself in work, and Rebecca paces around the flat as if in some dark dream. A tiny, ashen face is still vivid in her mind. Whenever she rounds a corner, whenever she closes her eyes. It will not leave her.

When Lane reaches out for her at night, she turns away. She can't.

(Eventually, she does, though her heart's not in it.)

He cries, afterward. Rebecca does not know why and will not ask, but he is her husband and she owes him this much, at least. She strokes his hair as he trembles, a silent attempt at comfort.

Something jagged and new pulses beneath the surface of her black grief, cutting back the rot.

In the spring, she swells again, sicker than ever before. She's dizzy and exhausted, and the doctor puts her on bed rest. Her mother visits during the day, assisting with the chores. Lane fusses over her at night, and the pride on his face only increases as the months tick by. Six, seven, eight, and Rebecca allows herself to imagine a crib that isn't empty. Lane paints the nursery again, a leftover green they'd once used in the dining room.

They are careful not to speak of it, but there's excitement.

Her son is nearly a day old when the nurse places him in Rebecca's arms for the first time, and though she's woozy and her head is splitting, there's an overwhelming, oceanic sense of relief.

His eyes flutter open to look at her. My god, he's _looking_ at her.

You're here, she thinks, smoothing the baby's tiny cheek with one finger – you're here, and you're all right.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the first verse of the Philip Larkin poem "Winter," from _The North Ship_ (1945) --
> 
>  
> 
> _In the field, two horses,_  
>  Two swans on the river,  
> While a wind blows over  
> A waste of thistles  
> Crowded like men;  
> And now again  
> My thoughts are children  
> With uneasy faces  
> That awake and rise  
> Beneath running skies  
> From buried places.


End file.
